WORLD BUSINESS BRIEFING | EUROPE; Belgium: Copyright Violation Is Claimed

By BLOOMBERG NEWS

Published: January 16, 2008

Belgian newspapers, emboldened by a court victory against Google last year, have started a preliminary copyright action against the European Commission over links on agency Web sites. Two Web sites owned by the commission, the Brussels-based executive for the 27 European Union nations, infringe copyright laws by linking to Belgian newspaper articles free, according to Copiepresse, a copyright group for French- and German-language newspapers. A Brussels court, asked by the group to look at its claim, appointed an expert to study how information is gathered for the E.U. sites. ''Once the expert has submitted his report, we may decide to file a lawsuit,'' said Margaret Boribon, the group's secretary general. A Brussels court in February ruled Google had violated Belgian copyright laws by publishing links to the newspapers without permission and ordered the company to remove the links or pay a daily fine of 25,000 euros ($37,000).